Problem
The administrative tool for our Online Ground School course utilized by aviation flight schools was very out of date. It had gotten to a point where flight school administrators were emailing the product owner their ideas of how to update the tool.
Discovery Phase
Since this tool was for enterprise clients, we had a wealth of feedback about their use of the product, their pain points and ideas to improve the tool. While not all the ideas presented by the clients were feasible, they exposed additional pain points in the tool that I included in the list of goals for the update.
There were information architecture issues in addition to the interface. It was added to the goals as something to update for the new tool.
We also conducted an audit on the information presented on each student and consulted with our most vocal clients on use cases, especially the most common, but also the fringe cases.
Data Derived Goals
The engineer and I worked with the product owner (who was a flight instructor as well) in reorganizing how the information and analytics were broken up per student, per school and per super admin (multiple school admins.) We decided on the following additional goals to the interface update:
The prototype was created in Axure RP9. Mock xml student data was imported to get as close as possible to the actual use cases of the large flight schools, our most dedicated clients.
The prototype was also adaptive and worked on tablet and desktop, the 2 most common devices used by the flight school admins. The prototype was mainly used to demonstrate the improvement of the Matrix Scheme which displayed all the student data clearly. I also added more “fun to have” features, like an editable profile image for the admin’s account.
Another issue resolved in the prototype was how the students’ course data was displayed; I majorly overhauled the tables to be clear at a sweeping glance (so instructors could see at a high-level the student’s progress in the course) but in clear enough detail when a particular student was under scrutiny.
Since this tool was for enterprise clients, functionality was key over aesthetics. The data presented was so dense for each student, I opted for a mostly monotone color scheme for the interface. The budget also didn’t allot for many fancy tactics, because it was for a niche but dedicated clientele.
Gleim Publications develops and distributes study and reference materials to help customers learn and understand Accounting and Aviation. Their mission is to maximize knowledge transfer while minimizing your time, frustration, and cost. They provide to accountants and pilots with easy-to-use, effective knowledge transfer systems. This stems from the company’s founder, Dr. Irvin Gleim (a prolific Professor of Accounting at University of Florida) having a passion for both accounting and aviation. He leveraged his self-study products to include pilot training as well.
